“Open Cities” Approach: a Prospect for Improving The
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reviewed paper The “Open Cities” Approach: a Prospect for Improving the Quality of Life in Alexandria City, Egypt Mai M.Abdo, Hany A.Ayad, Dina Taha (Mai.M.Abdo, MSc Candidate, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt, [email protected]) (Prof. Hany.A.Ayad, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt, [email protected]) (Dr. Dina Taha, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, [email protected]) 1 ABSTRACT On one level, sustainable urban development has been the focus attention of most of the planners for the past few years. It is a huge field of interest that needs not only being well studied, but also being implied to all cities all over the world. On the other level, the concept of “Open Cities” is a prospect within the planning domain, which aims at providing equal services and infrastructure to its citizens as well as making cities more attractive to foreign population, may they be migrants, visitors or investors. Hence, cities should be planned in a way to welcome a diversity of people and cultures. This research is concerned with the introduction of sustainable urban development factors into cities to achieve the concept of “Open Cities”. It aims at developing a plan that targets most of the problems facing cities, be it on the demographic, climatic, residential, commercial, social or political levels. It is believed that by combining the factors that affect “Open Cities” with the factors of Sustainable Urban Development, one could conclude the specific factors that should be tackled in order to achieve “Sustainable Open Cities”. The proposed concept and methodology of combining the factors of Sustainable Urban Development to those of “Open Cities” will be applied on the city of Alexandria as a case study. This will pinpoint and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach. 2 INTRODUCTION “Open Cities” have become an international trend that could be applied to cities all over the world. An Open City is one that is open to new ideas and innovation; welcoming to a diversity of people and cultures. It is a city of equal opportunities for all, a city that is open for the combination of lifestyle, creativity, scale, population, cultural and commercial diversity that enables it to become a ‘magnet’ city alongside cities. “Open Cities” require an open approach by city planers. Alexandria has a lot of characteristics that greatly help it to be compared with all the successful “Open Cities” all over the world. The challenge is that it is needed to find the right way to benefit from these characteristics and points of strength in the most efficient way in order to make Alexandria a successful open city and achieve its vision as a cosmopolitan city and an attractive place to live in. The paper will focus on the research’s case study of applying the methodology of combining the factors that affect both Sustainable Urban Development and those of “Open Cities” to be used in Alexandria urban development. It aims at exploring the “Open Cities” approach in achieving a sustainable urban development. It analyzes the spatial, socio-economic and administrative opportunities that could assist in the regaining of Alexandria cosmopolitan role in the 21st century. Finally, the paper suggests guidelines on how to incorporate the approach in the city planning and management processes in order to improve its quality of life. 3 METHODOLOGY: Through the analysis of “Open Cities” factors and combining them to the factors of Sustainable Urban Development we will reach the factors that should be taken into consideration in planning the city of Alexandria to make it an Open City. Moreover, with analyzing the current state of the city planning and the challenges that face the city’s sustainable development, we could suggest certain steps that could be applied on the city to make it open and improve the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants. 4 OPEN CITY AND SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT Both “Open Cities” and Sustainable Urban Development are delimited by several factors that describe their physical and socioeconomic characteristics; by the analysis of these factors we will attempt to find/analyze Proceedings REAL CORP 2012 Tagungsband ISBN: 978-3-9503110-2-0 (CD-ROM); ISBN: 978-3-9503110-3-7 (Print) 14-16 May 2012, Schwechat. http://www.corp.at Editors: Manfred SCHRENK, Vasily V. POPOVICH, Peter ZEILE, Pietro ELISEI 899 The “Open Cities” Approach: a Prospect for Improving the Quality of Life in Alexandria City, Egypt the relation between both types of factors, in order to use sustainable urban development to achieve the concept of “Open Cities”. 4.1 “Open Cities” Factors: The British Council and URBACT (2009) stated that Openness is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon which has to be measured by more than one factor and also by a large number of individual indicators which measure different aspects of openness. These indicators can be grouped thematically into nine key factors, where each factor represents one of various dimensions of the quality of life of all inhabitants with special attention paid to international populations who are important for the attractiveness and openness of the city. These factors are: (1) Groups of international populations (2) Governance and leadership (3) Regulatory (4) Economic (5) Social and societal (6) Cultural and amenity (7) Internationalization (8) Connectivity and accessibility (9) Environmental factors. 4.2 Sustainable Urban Development Factors: Sustainable Urban Development incorporates planning for transportation systems and land use to improve the structure of a town or city. Urban development includes urban renewal, which addresses issues like lack of investment in specific regions. Factors like land use, aesthetics, safety, unkempt buildings and transportation all affect how cities are planned. In this respect, Colantonio (2007) stated that”as a framework or unifying set of principles to be applied across all towns and cities. The core components of sustainable communities present a vision which has gained the commitment of many stakeholders. However, turning the vision into reality raises key questions of delivery. The success of Sustainable Communities policies will depend on the effective interaction of spatial planning, transportation, the economy, the environment and a number of other policy interventions”. Based on Nyakaana (2010), Fallaw (2010), Kishiue et al (2005), Ottensmann (2003), one can summarize the factors affecting sustainable urban development into the following: I suggest that the main factors affecting Sustainable urban development are as follow: 1)Network and infrastructure, 2)Geographical, 3)Political and safety, 4)Residential and planning, 5)Demographic, 6)Economic, 7)Environmental, 8)Social Factors. 4.3 The relation between “Open Cities” and Sustainable Urban Development: There are several relations between each factor of those of “Open Cities” and the suggested factors of the Sustainable Urban Development, by analyzing each of these factor’s characteristics one could conclude the diagram of relations below: REAL CORP 2012: 900 RE-MIXING THE CITY – Towards Sustainability and Resilience? Mai M.Abdo, Hany A.Ayad, Dina Taha Figure.1: The relation between factors affecting “Open Cities” and factors of Sustainable Urban Development The analysis reveals that these factors affect each other but in different weights. The factors of Sustainable Urban Development shown below are selected to be examined on the case study of Alexandria as the major effective factors on the city openness, as their effect is more than that of the other factors and also they are affected by the city openness too. (1) Residential and planning factors (2) Demographic and economic factors (3) Social factors (4) Network and infrastructure factors (5) Environmental factors (6) Political and safety factors 5 APPLICATION ON ALEXANDRIA Alexandria, with a population of about 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80 % of Egypt's imports and exports. Alexandria is also an important tourist resort (CAPMAS,2006). The city extends about 32 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in north- central Egypt. It is home to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and is an important industrial center. Source: Flickr.com Source: Flickr.com Source: Flickr.com Figure.2: Shots of Alexandria Beach 5.1 Residential and planning factors 5.1.1 Housing indicators The most populous districts (qism) of Alexandria, as indicated by the results of the 2006 census, are Montaza, El-Ameriyah and El-Rammil. However, Moharam-Bek, El-Manchiyat, Mena El-Bassal El-Labban and Karmooz are indicated as zones with high population density, as they constitute the old areas of the city. Residential densities of Alexandria all over its different districts are relatively high as presented in Table 1. Proceedings REAL CORP 2012 Tagungsband ISBN: 978-3-9503110-2-0 (CD-ROM); ISBN: 978-3-9503110-3-7 (Print) 14-16 May 2012, Schwechat. http://www.corp.at Editors: Manfred SCHRENK, Vasily V. POPOVICH, Peter ZEILE, Pietro ELISEI 901 The “Open Cities” Approach: a Prospect for Improving the Quality of Life in Alexandria City, Egypt Zone/District (Qism) Population Area (feddan1) Density (persons per feddan) Gross Density Residential Density Bab Sharq 179,729 1,349.34 133.20 721.22 El-Ameriyah. 491,373 100,389.13 4.89 207.95 El-Attareen 343,836 6,934.52 49.58 321.64 El-Dekhiyla 40,605 441.88 91.89 308.55 El-Gomrook 85,192 840.87 101.31 623.66 El-Labban 36,750 264.80 138.78 348.34 El-Manchiyat 23,616 136.76 172.68 415.77 El-Rammil 752,371 7,510.47 100.18 538.18 Karmooz 120,062 850.63 141.14 774.59 Mena El-Bassal 254,986 2,465.56 103.42 704.97 Moharam-Bek 299,401 1,307.79 228.94 807.01 Montaza 1,173,803 20,833.33 56.34 523.67 Sidi Gabr 226,304 2,778.47 81.45 565.90 Table.1: Alexandria, Population, Area and Density, (CAPMAS, 2006) The majority of households that belong to the upper income bracket reside Sidi Gabr, Montaza, Bab Sharq and El-Dekhiyla districts, while lower income families reside Karmooz, Mena El-Bassal and El-Gomrook districts, Table 2.